The Fly versus Friar Dave

By now, regular readers will have read comments from or seen various posts about my good friend, Friar Dave. Now, for those of you who don't know, I travelled in England and Italy with the good Friar in Spring of 2003. This included several days in Rome. The other day, Dave asked me a "trivia question" in order to help him identify one of his pictures. Apparently he had difficulty remembering the geographical layout of the ancient section of the city, and I had to describe the locations and architectural features of the three major arches in and around the Forum in order to assist him in identifying his pictures from his recent trip there. This is a portion of a conversation that happened the day after the initial "Which arch is this?" discussion.

Friar Dave: on my front...i hope you dont mind, but i used you as a personal reference on my borders app this afternoon
The Fly: Not a problem, I'll sing your praises, unless they ask me if you know geography.
Friar Dave: hm
Friar Dave: im actually not bad at geography
Friar Dave: i just hope they dont ask about my editing skills
The Fly: What arch is next to the Colosseum?
Friar Dave: immediately constantine. i could have told you that before our discussion last night
The Fly: No you couldn't have!
Friar Dave: of course i could have
Friar Dave: my question was on titus
The Fly: Then why did you have to ask me?
The Fly: It absolutely was not!
Friar Dave: LOL
Friar Dave: i wont rehash this, but if i had some identifiable landmark besides the arch, i could have told you exactly which one it is
Friar Dave: the angle is such though that the arch is the only remarkable thing
The Fly: By looking at a map.
Friar Dave: no, that's false Fly
The Fly: Admit defeat, Dave. You didn't know what arch it was.
The Fly: You knew the location, you didn't know the name.
Friar Dave: the only thing the map did was give me directions to describe to you which way i was looking
The Fly: Dude, you had to ask me what arch it was. That was your question: which arch is at the entrance to the forum.
Friar Dave: yes. because by the angle i thought i was looking at the palatine, which would mean it was titus
Friar Dave: but i realized when i saw your picture it was constantine
Friar Dave: and so the map was only good for describing to you what angle the picture was taken from
The Fly: No, it wouldn't have meant it was Titus, because looking through the Arch of Titus means that you're looking toward the Colosseum, or toward the Capitoline Hill.
The Fly: Yeah, but you're missing the point: by the time you had the map to look at, you already knew which arch it was.
Friar Dave: and you're missing the point that my geography isnt bad, my assumption of what i was looking at in the background was
The Fly: Which, I contend, is a function of geography. Geography isn't just location, it's identification and knowledge of landmarks.
Friar Dave: ok, one sec
The Fly: k
The Fly: LOL
Friar Dave: did you look at the picture in question?
The Fly: Yeah, last night.
Friar Dave: ok...well, i just opened again...
Friar Dave: and i am forced to concede that last night my geography was horrible
The Fly: Okay...
The Fly: LOL
Friar Dave: on thinking on it again, theres no way that could be titus
The Fly: Nope. Did you see my picture of the Arch of Titus?
Friar Dave: even if that hill was the palatine, there'd be other forum stoff in the foregroudn
The Fly: Yep. The Arch of Titus faces the wrong way, you can't see the Palatine Hill from either side of it looking through.
Friar Dave: but. all that aside. i still contend that ive always known the arch of constantine stands immediately outside the colosseum. i pointed it out as such to jeff and gretchen when we were there
Friar Dave: i was just geographically impaired when i was looking at the view last night. im sure part of it was my confusion being on that side of it (which i still dont remember taking the picture)
The Fly: I can accept that, I'm just saying I'd have to be honest if Borders called me and asked.
Friar Dave: haha
Friar Dave: of coures
Friar Dave: i still say that im better off with that question than on proofreading
The Fly: LOL Probably true, considering I'm the one who proofread your long-ass Eriugena paper.
Friar Dave: and witness multiple typos in every conversation

What's the moral of the story? If you find yourself in a disagreement with me, you'd better be positive that you're right, because I won't give up unless you can prove it to me beyond a shadow of a doubt. Today Michelley successfully corrected me, and Mo-Licious has been able to do it on a number of occasions.

Of course, if you're just not worth the effort, or I don't care about your opinion, I just won't let it turn into an issue. Basically, if I turn agreeable all of a sudden, and you're not an attractive woman between the ages of nineteen and twenty-five, start worrying.